


i should tell you

by alderations



Series: Whumptober/Mechtober 2020 [11]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Crying, Gun Violence, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Other, Pre-Relationship, Temporary Character Death, Whumptober 2020, attempted spaceship theft, original cyberian stock villain, too tired to actually write the mutual pining but it's there in spirit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26965735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alderations/pseuds/alderations
Summary: A year is an awfully long time for a mortal human to survive around the Mechanisms, so the continued existence of Lyfrassir Edda feels like a ticking time bomb by the time they actually get hurt.(Whumptober Day 11: defiance/struggling/crying; Mechtober Day 10-12: death)
Relationships: Lyfrassir Edda/Marius von Raum
Series: Whumptober/Mechtober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950916
Comments: 18
Kudos: 139
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	i should tell you

A year is an awfully long time for a mortal human to survive around the Mechanisms, so the continued existence of Lyfrassir Edda feels like a ticking time bomb by the time they actually get hurt.

They’d jumped into the life of piracy with more vigor than any of the Mechanisms had expected, though no one was really sure whether it was due to repressed criminality or just as a coping mechanism. Everything from upscale heists to petty theft is easier with an ex-cop on their side, and in return, they do their best to keep Lyf out of harm’s way physically and emotionally.

All of this means that no one is prepared for the first time an enemy  _ does  _ wave a gun in Lyf’s face.

Most of the Mechanisms are planetside, aside from four: Lyf, nursing a nasty hangover from karaoke night with Jonny; Marius, following Lyf around like a definitely-not-in-love puppy; Brian, on MJE and determined to stay as far away from innocent lives as possible; and Ivy, who claims that she’s already downloaded every written text known to this planet. None of them notice the intruder who sneaks on board after the others have left, and none of them notice the knockout gas flooding the bridge until it’s too late and they’re halfway under.

Marius wakes up tied to the pilot’s chair, for a change, with Lyf next to him and Ivy on the floor at his feet. Brian is unbound, but the hefty magnet clipped to the back of his head is clearly doing something unpleasant to his brain, because he’s making some kind of electrical feedback noise that shouldn’t be produced by a human voice. Before Marius can take stock of the situation any further, a scrawny man with a stupidly large gun emerges from the back of the room and scowls down at him. “Marius von Raum.”

“That’s me,” Marius hisses. “What do you want?”

The man grins. “Am I correct in believing that this is, in fact, the starship Aurora?”

“Ye-es,” Brian stutters, his voice glitching.

“Good. Then I have what I want.” The stranger strokes the barrel of his gun, then looks down at Ivy on the floor. “I had hoped to avoid running into  _ any  _ of you, because immortals really are tricky to deal with, but none of you gave me that much trouble after all. Not that the Drumbot  _ can  _ cause trouble, at the moment.”

The comment is clearly in reference to his switch as much as the magnetic interference, and Ivy scowls up at the intruder. “Statistically, it’s most likely that you read our wanted posters and thought you were the one skilled enough to bring us in.”

“Not exactly,” he replies. “Like I said, I want nothing to do with you, Alexandria. My name is Yulian, and I’m here under the orders of the post-Cyberian Cosmo-Soviet Alliance to reclaim the Aurora for her rightful owners.”

Ivy snorts. “Good luck with that. You have approximately ten minutes before Nastya realizes that something’s wrong and guts you for threatening her ship.”

Yulian’s face morphs into a mask of rage that makes even Marius draw back. “So the bitch is still alive after all? Good. We’ll make her suffer, too.”

At those words, Brian starts writhing in place as if trying to get up, but Yulian ignores him and instead turns to Lyf. “In the meantime,” he muses, “I’m curious about you. I’ve spent enough time researching the Mechanisms to know that you don’t fit any of the descriptions, stranger.”

“I’m… new,” Lyf offers, deadpan.

“No mechanism that I can see,” Yulian notes. “You’re not one of them, are you?”

Marius starts to sputter a defense, but before he can get the words out, Yulian raises his massive gun and points it at Lyf. “Don’t—stop!” Marius shouts, leaning forward against his bonds. “You already  _ have  _ us here, you don’t need to shoot them.”

Looking back at him, Yulian narrows his eyes and cocks the gun. “Now I  _ really  _ want to.”

Before Marius can protest any more, he shoots, and Lyf’s head jerks back as the shotgun takes out half of their skull. It’s an old-fashioned one, the kind that uses buckshot instead of plasma, and the mess it makes is the kind of exquisite gore that would usually delight Marius. He’s used to seeing bits of his loved ones sprayed across the walls of the ship, and part of him hardly reacts, but Lyf—Lyf is mortal. Lyf  _ can’t  _ die. Lyf doesn’t move, even as Yulian lowers the shotgun and turns back to him with a nasty grin. “You picked up a mortal pet, huh? That’s cute.”

“Why did you do that,” Marius spits.

“Because I wanted to. You all seem to think I’m joking about taking this ship, but I’m entirely serious. Even if I have to chop you up and zip all the pieces in little plastic bags to keep you from fucking regenerating, I’ll get you off this ship, and I’ll fly it back home.”

Marius trembles in his seat, keenly aware of the wet splatter of Lyf’s blood on his cheek. “Y-you can’t. You—you’re— _ fuck  _ you.”

On the floor, Ivy cranes her neck to get a good look at Marius, which means that he can see how pale her face has gone. “Marius,” she warns, voice cracking.

“No! No. Fuck you. Fuck all of you. I’m—I’m going to rip every one of you to shreds as soon as I get out of this chair. I’m going to launch your fucking tatters into space and watch you freeze. You have no right to play at the fucking executioner when you’re—you’re—”

_ “I  _ have no right?” Yulian interrupts him. “That’s all your crew does! You spend your entire lives wandering around the universe, killing everyone unfortunate enough to stray into your path, and you call  _ me  _ a fucking executioner?”

Marius’s face crumples as hot tears prick the corners of his eyes and he fights against the ropes holding him down. “I don’t  _ care!  _ You—you—we barely had them for a year, I never even got to…”

Another shot rings out, plasma this time, and Yulian slumps to the ground.

Brisk footsteps echo around the bridge as Nastya approaches, jaw set and eyes aflame. “Which one of you imbeciles let a fucking Cyberian onto the ship?”

“There’s a ninety-two percent chance that he snuck on as you were all leaving,” Ivy responds meekly.

Nastya just shakes her head and starts detaching the magnet from Brian’s skull. “You’re lucky I got word from Aurora before anything could go too wrong.”

“Too wrong?” Marius roars, at the last fraying edge of his sanity. “He fucking  _ shot  _ Lyf. Things have  _ been  _ too wrong, and all you give a shit about is whether we scratched a goddamn panel on the Aurora. Or were they always a fucking joke to you, Nastya?”

She freezes in place, then turns to look at Marius. By now, he’s sobbing openly, his face beet-red and streaked with tears, while Lyf’s head is still a gnarled mess of bone and brains. Nastya’s mouth forms into a startled  _ oh.  _ “I… didn’t process that they’re… oh.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Marius kicks out against nothing, nearly hitting Ivy in the process. “I hate all of you so  _ much.  _ Just this once, I thought I could have someone who wasn’t one of you assholes, and now look at me. Fucking pathetic. I can’t believe I thought this would work.”

Ivy and Nastya lock eyes for a moment, both confused by whatever Marius is rambling about. Everyone on the ship knows that Marius feels strongly about Lyf, but he’s always refused to act on it, insisting that there’s no way they could possibly feel the same. And, besides, they’re mortal. So if it wouldn’t work, it had more to do with Marius’s stubbornness than anything else. “Please take a deep breath,” Ivy mutters up at him.

_ “No!”  _ Marius launches into another tirade, still thrashing, but Nastya’s attention is caught all of a sudden by an arc of rainbow light that leaps across the side of Lyf’s head.

“Marius,” she calls, reaching out a hand as if to shut him up. “Hold that thought. Look at them.”

He does, even if he’s terrified to see the wreckage of their skull again, but he goes quiet when he notices what Nastya sees. The iridescent light grows brighter, pulsing as if with a heartbeat that Lyf shouldn’t have, as it slowly weaves between sulci and gyri, repairing the mess in Lyf’s head and then moving on to the bone. Marius is silent for once. By the time Lyf’s skin knits itself closed, his mouth is hanging open.

Then they jolt upright with a rattling gasp, and everyone else in the room lets out a collective breath.

Nastya takes it upon herself to cut Lyf loose as he and Marius start babbling in unison, equal parts terrified and relieved, and Brian steps forward to help her now that he’s sorted out the magnetic interference in his limbs. As soon as he’s free, Marius lurches toward Lyf, scooping them into his arms and squeezing them tight enough to punch the breath out of them.

“I thought you were fucking  _ dead,”  _ he sobs into their shoulder.

Lyf’s hands tremble as they pat his back. “I… was. I-I-I was dead. What’s happening?”

They’re going to have to talk about this, and given the way Lyf is shaking, it’s not going to be a pleasant conversation. But at the moment, Marius clings to them with all the strength of a starving octokitten, and he lets himself give in to a rush of selfish joy at the realization that they’re not dead. They  _ can’t  _ die, apparently. “I don’t know,” he mumbles, pulling back enough to look them in the face. They’re both sprayed with blood, but Marius presses his forehead against Lyf’s all the same, his voice wobbling with relief. “You’re alive, though. I get to t—I, um, I have time.”

“We have time,” Lyf echoes.

**Author's Note:**

> ngl I hurt my back today at work and my brain's response to pain is just say "lol bye" and yeet itself out of this dimension, so I'm WAY too dissociated to write anything good and I apologize if this is like. absolute nonsense. please forgive me.
> 
> however, i am so deeply a violinspector simp and i love to think about every possible way that they could get together. i wish i had the time and mental energy to make this a real mutual pining masterpiece. alas. i must chug along
> 
> find me on tumblr @alderations and perhaps leave comments? pls? it makes me so very happy. even if you're all just like "this makes absolutely no sense al go to bed" lol.


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